Child sex offender to appeal

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A child sex offender given preventive detention after he was found with a 13-year-old school girl in his bed while he was supposed to be under 24 hour guard is appealing his sentence.

Shane Frederick Stoneham, 27, whose past victims include a four-year-old, had been found with the girl while he was living at an Upper Hutt house under the guard of the Corrections Department contractor in 2010.

He had met her online and she later hid out in his room with him.

Stoneham had proposed to the girl and even bought her an engagement ring.

At the time he had been under a court ordered extended supervision order for 10 years, part of which meant he was to be watched for 24 hours a day and be electronically monitored.

He had been released from prison in 2008 after serving a previous sentence of three years and nine months for a sexual attack on a girl.

His lawyer Chris Tennet said there had been some small improvement despite Stoneham being resistant and defiant to attempts to help him.

He said the girl had lied to Stoneham telling him she was 16 when he had been determined not to get into a relationship with anyone younger.

However he agreed that Stoneham had been wilfully blind about the girl's age, especially after being warned by his own mother and by a probation officer who met her while she was in school uniform.

Mr Tennet said the extended supervision order would still give the protection the public required if Stoneham was instead given a finite sentence and was later released.

The judge at the High Court, Justice Ron Young had said the preventive detention sentence was necessary to protect other girls and women from Stoneham when he sentenced on unlawful sexual connection and four charges of breach of the supervision order.